How to keep track of your job applications (and why a spreadsheet stops working at 20)

What breaks is the state of each application

A job hunt produces more live applications than most people expect. On a widely quoted global benchmark, it takes roughly 40 applications to get one interview, a conversion rate of about 3%. That is a global figure rather than New Zealand data. Whatever the local rate, a hunt of any length has many applications open at once, each at a different point.

One is applied and silent. One has a phone screen on Thursday. One is waiting on your referees. One went quiet after a second interview. The spreadsheet usually records that you applied and when. What it rarely records well is where each application is up to today, and what you owe next.

The symptoms are familiar. A recruiter rings and you cannot place the role. You find an ad you have already applied for. You miss the day you meant to follow up, then feel awkward about following up late.

The fields worth tracking

Keep the record to the fields you will actually update. These are the ones that earn their place:

These are the same fields a dedicated tracker keeps; the features page lists how jobtracker.co.nz handles each one. The salary story deserves its own column. If you give one range on a form and another in an interview, a careful recruiter will notice. Writing down what you said lets you hold to it. In jobtracker.co.nz each job has a place for the advertised range, what you said you wanted and what they offered, and when the ad gave a range it shows them side by side as take-home pay.

Keep the ad itself as well. Ads come down after the closing date, often before the interview, and the wording is exactly what you need to prepare. On a computer, saving jobs in one press keeps the whole ad with the job, from Seek, LinkedIn, Indeed, Student Job Search or a company careers page; on a phone, paste the link and the ad text into a new job.

Why the 7 and 21 day follow-up windows matter

Two dates do most of the work in a job hunt, both counted from your last contact with the employer, which for a new application is the day you applied. About a week in, one short follow-up is reasonable and often useful. About three weeks after the last contact, it is time to close the application honestly and stop carrying it. The reasoning and the wording for both are in our guide to following up on a job application.

The windows only help if you know when they arrive. In a sheet, that means working out the days since the last contact for every row, every time you look. Miss the week and the follow-up feels late. Miss the three weeks and the application sits in your list as a hopeful maybe, adding weight to every review.

Closing a silent application marks the effort as done and moves your attention to the applications that are still alive.

A spreadsheet template, and its honest limits

A spreadsheet is a fine place to start. Use one row per application and these columns: role, employer, link, stage, date applied, date of last contact, contact name, salary story, next action, next action date, and notes. Add a column that works out the days since the last contact (today's date minus the last contact date), and colour it amber at 7 and red at 21. That alone catches most slipped follow-ups.

The limits show up as the hunt grows:

• The sheet does not remind you. It only answers when you open it and look.
• It keeps the current stage and loses the history, so you cannot see how long anything took.
• The same recruiter appears on four rows, spelled three ways.
• It is awkward on a phone, which is where the recruiter's call arrives.
• The ad lives somewhere else, if it lives anywhere.

If you would like to see the same records with the dates worked out for you, the demo opens a full 22-application hunt with no account.

The duplicate-application trap

The easiest mistake to make in a spreadsheet is applying for the same job twice. It happens when an employer advertises directly and through an agency, when two agencies put you forward for one role, or when an ad is re-posted with a new reference.

In New Zealand, where plenty of hiring runs through agencies, being put forward twice can cost you the role. The employer sees two submissions and a possible fee dispute, and the simplest way out is to set both aside.

Three habits prevent it. Before you apply, search your list for the employer's name, not only the job title. Record which agency, if any, put you forward, and ask any recruiter to confirm before they submit you anywhere. Keep the listing reference, because a re-posted ad often keeps the same one.

jobtracker.co.nz does the first check for you: when a job is at an employer where you already have an open application, its page says so, and an ad you bring across twice is recognised by its listing reference and not added again.

Keep the hunt in one place